


nay, I will take thee too

by anotherbuskitten



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Torchwood
Genre: Djinni & Genies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27435901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherbuskitten/pseuds/anotherbuskitten
Summary: Jack is a djinn, he's practically designed to fall for natural disasters – and Sirius is like a meteorite hitting him (hot like the sun, burning brighter than angels). Jack loves him.Sirius doesn't realise Jack's flirting with him for – maybe months, Jack isn't sure – but one day he's talking about the heat in the desert and how it burns right down to your atoms and Sirius says "Take me." and kisses him, like it's normal, like it's natural.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Jack Harkness
Kudos: 2





	1. Jack is dealing with things in his own way and he's doing fine

**Author's Note:**

> It's my birthday, and to celebrate I'm posting this. This is one of those things you can't even pretend you wrote for anyone except yourself (even though healthily speaking everything you write is for yourself and it doesn't matter if no one likes it blah blah. this time it really doesn't matter)
> 
> Uh let's see, things I should mention: When I started this I'd just finished binge reading all the torchwood novels so I used the characters as placeholders and then never got around to changing them into something that made more sense; you know when you make an npc and get attached and they start hanging around the main story? it's like that. So they bear very little resemblance to their canon but they're staying anyway.  
> The title is from Cleopatra's last words in 'Antony and Cleopatra'  
> And, I still feel kinda weird writing hp stuff what with jk being how she is but I've put too much emotion into it all to stop now. Turns out I'm not very good at repurposing anything I've written. huh.
> 
> Anyway, I'd quite like to archive this because I do like it, and hey! what a coincidence! this is an archive! happy birthday to me

Jack has four friends – they’re a dying breed, djinns – and none of them have ever met Sirius Black. All of them have seen Jack go doe-eyed over whichever mortal has caught his eyes this time, so none of them take him seriously anymore. He’s the boy who cried wolf of falling in love.

Ianto is the first to hear about it because Ianto – there was a time when Jack thought that Ianto was his one-and-only but Jack has a very big heart and Ianto has enough sense to know that djinns should never stay together for very long.

The pang Jack gets whenever Ianto allows him into his space has lessened over time but right now it’s twanging like crazy and whether it’s because of Ianto or Sirius he couldn’t say. He doesn’t say anything actually, but punches him in the face and then kisses him.

Ianto kisses back for about half a second before pushing him away and punching him back. The slight injuries they sustain heal quickly, too quickly for Jack’s comfort – he doesn’t have any scars and he wants them, oh, how he wants them.

Blood drying on his teeth and lips he smiles at Ianto giddily, feeling young again and before he can speak Ianto smiles at him and tells him to go.

For the first time since they met, Jack obeys without argument. Perhaps this is moving on.

  
  


Owen tells him flat out that there’s no way to bring back the dead and Jack accepts it quietly because he should have known better than to ask Owen.

  
  


Gwen wrinkles her nose at him when he turns up on her doorstep and shoos him away when he gets to close. Gwen is adamant that her husband never finds out she isn’t human – Rhys Williams is a lucky man, Jack thinks, not for the first time; he’s got everything he wants and as long as he never finds out how, that’s unlikely to change.

Gwen smiles at him later, after sunset, and lets him cry a little into her shoulder – Jack does so every time, she’s thinking, every time he gets to meet the mortal and he’ll never settle down with any of them and it’ll still break his heart when they leave.

  
  


He goes to Tosh last because she is by far the most dangerous of them, by far the most likely to be able to help as well. She isn’t like the rest of them, Tosh, she’s more primal, more deadly, she’s the snake in the sand, always there; venom at the ready, just…waiting.

Tosh doesn’t tell him to leave, or tell him what he wants isn’t possible. She does tell him she won’t help, that if she was going to meddle with the laws of the universe she would have already done so.

He doesn’t understand why. Jack knows that Tosh has never fallen for a mortal – only for…she smiles at him sweetly and he thinks of how many gravestones Owen maintains.

How many perfect, shining, ageless monuments he has.

  
  


In the end, none of his friends help. He wishes The Doctor was here; The Doctor was Jack’s first ever true love and seeing him always made the stars themselves fade away. But no one had seen The Doctor in thousands of years – his friends had never even met him. Djinns are dying out.

  
  


(Jack even, after much inner turmoil, goes to Yvonne. She laughs at him, and then laughs some more.)


	2. it's true what they say

He wakes up, blinking and tired, to the whitest light he’s ever seen and the feeling of harsh sand underneath. He thinks, at first, that he must have somehow made it to heaven because he’s been thinking for a while now that heaven would be a desert – somewhere where the ground burnt your feet.

Except the longer he walks the more he feels like he’s already been to heaven. He remembers, the further he gets from the sand he woke up on, the closer he gets to the sand ahead, he remembers a different white light; softer, less hot, and smiling faces and not feeling chained to the ground. He’s chained up again now – he was a prisoner for long enough, he can recognise even the nicest cell.

He starts to feel as though he’s forgotten something important.

  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  


It could be days, or seconds, or centuries, when he finally remembers.

  
  


_Harry_

  
  


Of course, how could he forget – no seriously, how?

He’s running now, faster than anything because he left Harry, left him not alone but still alone and stuck with that prophecy and he still loves the heat of the desert but right now he’d give anything to be back in Grimmauld Place.

And then he is.

  
  


Not his Grimmauld Place, not the one he remembers, but still definitely his childhood home – but now homely, and colourful and blessedly silent.

But more importantly. Wasn’t he just in a desert?

He touches the walls to be sure, and crouches down the feel the ground, to see if it will shift under his feet, if maybe this is an illusion, a mirage, and instead he realises that he didn’t see a single mirage in the actual desert; that he doesn’t feel heat-madness, or thirst, or hunger, or weakness.

He swallows and forces himself to stand up again. And maybe he had been in that desert for centuries, walking around with no destination and a gaping hole in his mind where his godson should be. Maybe his whole life’s been papered over and everything he ever knew lost to history.

He pushes the door and it swings open into the hallway and looking back at the room – it’s the drawing room, only the tapestry’s been torn down and replaced with some sort of wallpaper that blurs when he looks at it, somehow unable to see it as it is now and not how it is in his head.

Sirius’ first thought when he sees Kreacher is relief, thundering and powerful, that at least he’s somewhere with people he knows – maybe they won’t know him, whichever world it is he’s standing in, but at least he can guess as to who he can trust (because that’s always worked out _so_ well in the past, the one thing he should know by now is that he can never trust the people he wants to call family – can’t he still feel Bellatrix’s spell hitting his chest, that broken, breathless feeling when he realised what Peter had done, his father’s wand over his heart, his mother –)

Anyway, he can’t imagine Kreacher changing, not really, so maybe he doesn’t notice at first that the elf’s wearing a proper uniform, or that he’s standing straighter than he should be almost like he’s working for a family that gives a damn about him. So yeah, he doesn’t notice that Kreacher isn’t who he remembers and he doesn’t think that Kreacher might react – badly.

(For Kreacher, he’s seeing a ghost of his past, and there’s still that tug that says he belongs to this man, to this man he hates, this man he killed, and – and who wouldn’t be terrified by that? Sirius is the last person Kreacher wants to see; see Master Harry might well be the best master on the planet and he may have accepted that Kreacher was pushed into his actions but at the end of the day he still caused the death of someone important to Master Harry and he still. Well let’s just say that he never regretted it.)

Harry runs in at Kreacher’s scream and – doesn’t recognise Sirius, maybe it’s age, maybe death made him anew, maybe it’s just the sheer absurdity but Harry’s face only shows anger and he’s got his wand pointing at Sirius’ heart just like the first time they met, and Sirius thinks, not for the first time, not for the last time, that this kid will be the end of him.

Sirius has never wanted to hurt Harry, not from the moment he knew he existed, so he has his hands up like he’s being arrested again and Merlin’s beard this hurts and he wants to be gone –

And he’s somewhere else. Still London, he knows without thinking it, and he knows…

(The thing is, Sirius has always known more than he’s let on, always been less of the fool than he plays. He’d rather people thought he was stupid than know he was dangerous.

The Black family knows their history for reasons more than simple pride. If you go back far enough you’ll find people who were there the first time magic was hunted and even then they wanted immortality. The Black’s will be the first to cheer on men like Voldemort or Grindelwald, the first to throw muggle-borns under the proverbial bus. But isn’t there that phrase about protesting too much?

Sirius knows useful things about magic that for the most part, are forgotten. Phineas Nigellus, when he heard that the last of the Black’s was dead, was mourning something more than simple blood.

Sirius knows that are more than just the four types of magic (he is still fire, Regulus is still water, Harry is still air) but there’s more than that. Remus is stone (earth, people say, and Sirius holds back his derision) steady, unmoving. Jack, and all his kind, are plasma – or space, or magic, whatever you call it. Albus was death.

Sirius is fire. But he is also plasma and he is also…something else. Of all the hundreds of Black ancestors it was Sirius who edged the line between human and not the most. He has a feeling he’s just fallen off it.)

Right now Sirius knows that he is facing North, so he turns and starts to walk to Wales. He knows that he could think it, the same as he did for Grimmauld, and he would appear. But he doesn’t want to appear. He wants to walk.

(He wants his legs to ache and burn, and his mouth to taste like dust, and his skin to dry out.)

In Wales, he sees Jack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of feelings about Sirius and deserts, which I have rationalised in my head but not in this story


	3. you can never go home

When Kreacher’s stopped wailing Harry checks the house’s defences and finds them unchanged, undamaged. Whoever the stranger had been, the house knew him.

In the weeks that follow, Harry jumping at shadows, Kreacher’s nerves noticeably fraying, Harry tries to pinpoint exactly who the man reminded him of. He knows he knows him; he must do, with the wards, and…he hadn’t been focusing when it happened and he thinks he should have looked closer. Some part of him hurts at the thought of losing the man.

(He did look, after the man had vanished, searched the house top to bottom, assuming he couldn’t have gotten far – surely the wards wouldn’t allow that. But it seemed they had and by the time he left to look at the street outside the footsteps in the snow had long since faded.

Stranger still, the man had left no magical trace, none at all. Harry was baffled, and, more damningly, so was Hermione.)


	4. again, and again

Sirius doesn’t punch him when they see each other again, even though Jack had been half expecting him to. He doesn’t smile either.

They make eye contact for barely a second before Sirius pushes past him and into the house.

Sirius has only been in Jack’s house once before and even though he obviously remembers where everything is, he also very clearly doesn’t belong. Jack is struck by a sudden memory of Ianto telling him that they couldn’t stay together. He wonders how long it will take before someone turns up at his door to tell Sirius to leave – because he knows he’s never going to say a word.

And the best thing about it is Jack knows that Sirius never gives information out he isn’t asked for directly so he won’t mind if Jack hides a few things. He won’t even consider it a sin.

Jack reaches out; desperate for something and almost immediately draws it back at the heat radiating off of Sirius’ skin.

For as long as he’d known him Sirius had always been freezing, always carrying a dementor’s chill wrapped around him like a heavy cloak. Even in the hottest summer – they’d only gotten one together but even so – he’d been freezing. Even when they’d be lying tangled together in bed, even when Sirius was coated in sweat, even then Jack hadn’t been able to warm him up. But now his skin scorches to touch. For some reason, this alone makes Jack want to cry.

Despite him having pulled his hand back almost instantly Sirius still notices Jack’s aborted movement and he turns to face him. Finally.

His eyes aren’t warm but they aren’t cold or blazing either; he looks, if anything, like a particularly passionless portrait. And when he speaks he sounds as dead as he should have been. “Whatever you’ve done, I’m sure you did it in good faith.”

“I just wanted you back.” Jack shrugs faux-carelessly, unconvincing. “I missed you.”

“Just one question and then I’ll work on forgiving you.”

“Ok.” He acquiesces. He doesn’t ask why he needs to be forgiven – he’d been made into a djinn; he’d never really died, not permanently. He doesn’t know – had Sirius reached some sort of heaven? Or was something else hurting him?

“When you were doing this did you want me to be happy, or me to be here more?”

“I…here. Here is permanent, we can work on happy.”

Sirius’ mouth twists and for a moment Jack can see a vestige of humanity on his face and he knows – Sirius really does want to forgive him. It hurts somehow worse than anything else has.

  
  


The night passes before Sirius speaks again. Voice horse and slightly bitter he tells Jack about the desert he woke up in. About the heat.

The more he speaks the more the heat siphons off him, until, wrapped in Jack’s arms, he’s as cold as the first day they touched. In time, Jack’s sure, the heat will return enough that he can pass for human and not something unearthly but never enough to suit the rage of desert heat. Even so, perhaps one day they would go together to those lands. They’d wanted that, before.

He has been silent for too long apparently for Sirius has turned to face him. Jack watches as Sirius silently maps his face for a little too long.

“I need to go back to London.”

Jack doesn’t speak, paralysed; he’d thought he’d have a few weeks longer, before someone told Sirius that he couldn’t stay with Jack but Sirius had apparently worked it out anyway.

“No.” He chokes out.

Sirius stares at him. “You can come with me if you want. But I thought you didn’t like England.”

“I don’t – what?”

Sirius’ eyebrows furrow. “You hate London? You never used to visit.”

“No. Why are you going?” If it isn’t to get away from me?

“I need to talk to Harry.” Oh. Harry. Perfect Harry. Sirius never stops talking about Harry. “I saw him before but –

Sirius stops talking.

“I can’t go to London.” Jack says. “London belongs to Yvonne. She won’t let you in either.”

“Another djinn?”

“She belonged to the royals once. She never got over the empire falling. She hates the rest of us.”

“I’m not _us_ Jack.” Sirius says, not unkindly. “And I need to talk to my godson.”

Involuntarily, Jack feels his face start to sneer. He rolls over before Sirius can see.

“Jack…”

  
  


  
  


To his surprise, when he wakes up, Sirius is still there.


	5. I'm only letting you in to annoy Harkness

Surprisingly enough, Yvonne lets them in – or she lets Sirius in and makes Jack barter for entry until he owes her more than he owes anyone else, even the Doctor.

Sirius waits for them to finish and thanks Yvonne sweetly, making Jack wonder how much he got away with when he was alive. Not enough, he knows, never enough.

“Thank you for coming.” Sirius says quietly, once they’re on their way, tucking his hand into the crook of Jack’s elbow. He’s still cold.

Jack huffs and doesn’t tell him that he’s going to greedily take any second he can get because this isn’t going to last.

“What’re you going to do if he says no?”

Sirius shrugs and shakes his head. “I don’t know yet. I haven’t let myself think about it.”

Jack stares at him, blindsided, as he’d thought Sirius had spent the whole week thinking of Harry. Working up the courage to come here.

Sirius catches him staring and kisses him quickly on the side of the mouth.

“Well what have you been thinking about?”

His lips tighten, the vestiges of a smile quickly chased away. “I feel chained down. It was the same in the desert. I’ve been waiting for it to go away.”

Oh. Jack’s been so tied up in worrying about when Sirius will leave he’d forgotten to tell him basic djinn information. “It’s your lamp.”

“My…?”

“Lamp. Y’know, like in the story? It doesn’t have to be a lamp though.”

Sirius stares, eyes colder than usual. “Jack. Tell me I’m not.” He looks away, starts walking quicker.

Jack chases him down and grabs his arm. “Wait up!”

Sirius shakes him off. “I’m someone’s slave then?”

“No!” Jack’s eyes widen. “No! It’s easy to free, I swear.”

Sirius laughs bitingly. “And if someone rubs it?”

“They won’t. No one looks anymore; we’re basically myths these days, you know that. And anyway, we’ll find it first.”

“And then?”

“You just have to have someone wish you free. Easy.”

“Can you do it?”

“Well no. It has to be a human; djinn can’t touch lamps. But you have friends. It’ll be ok.”

Sirius sneers. “I _had_ friends. I don’t even know if they’re still alive.”

“Harry…”

“Threw me out. I scared the elf.”

“Sirius…love…” Jack reaches out. Sirius turns away.

“I’ve spent most of my life in chains Jack and now you’ve gone and damned me to having my afterlife spent the same way.”

Jack’s heart stutters. “I can go out now. Start looking for it immediately, and I’ve got friends who’ll help. Djinns look out for each other, even Yvonne will – especially if it’s because I fucked up. She’ll like that.” His heart beats faster; he’ll lose Sirius even faster if he involves the others. Selfish bastard Jack.

Sirius looks at him, face wet with tears. Jack’s never seen him cry before.

“Thanks. I need the moral support though – if Harry does throw me out. I’m still furious with you.”

Jack wants to kiss him but doesn’t want to push his luck. He grabs his hand and kisses it instead.

Sirius smiles. He’s always forgiving people too easily.


	6. finally

Harry opens the door on the first knock. Sirius wonders if he had been waiting for a caller; he considers saying that they can come back later. _Merlin_ , he’s a coward.

“Come in.” His eyes chase over Sirius’ face and Sirius knows he still doesn’t recognise him. Still he follows, pulling Jack through behind him. For the first time in his memory the house seems happy to see him.

Harry seems to notice this too because he jerks around to stare at them wildly. Sirius holds his breath in case Harry has recognised him but Harry just narrows his eyes and beckons them into the parlour.

Kreacher is lurking behind a door and Sirius waits for the inevitability of him saying something that will spark a memory. He almost welcomes it, as all his memories recently have been of the desert, but it never comes and instead Harry spots the elf and sends him off to tend to another part of the house.

“You scare him.” Harry says, not quite angling for an explanation but still expecting one. He’s grown into himself.

Sirius laughs. “He probably thinks I want revenge.”

“Do you?”

Sirius ignores him. “It’s ok that you don’t recognise me. I imagine the experience changed me.”

“You don’t look any different.” Jack says but his voice splinters on the lie. “Not physically. It’s the magic.”

“Plasma.” Sirius says softly, not expecting either of them to understand and being proven right in an instant. “I can’t take this – Harry, it’s Sirius. I’m not –” He chokes on the word dead, unable to speak it aloud. Too little, too late; the war’s over soldier, and what have you got to come home to?

Harry’s face goes chalk white, scarily so, and before he can stop himself Sirius is by his side with his hand on his shoulder, propping him up.

They stand like that for – hours perhaps, Sirius’ sense of time still lost, – before Jack clears his throat. Sirius lets go of Harry hurriedly.

“At least we know who gets your lamp.” Jack says, almost bitterly. “You’re long gone.”

Sirius smiles lopsidedly, “On you too, I promise.”

/

When Harry’s mind stops shaking and he looks up he finds that he’s only been frozen for a few seconds. Obviously the man is lying. Harry knows this. Obviously.

But it fits together perfectly. Kreacher’s reaction. The House’s welcoming. How safe Harry felt with two strangers in his home – Harry barely felt safe around his friends most of the time. But Sirius was safe.

He looks at him from the side, as though he’s the sun, and now that he’s said his name aloud Harry recognises him at once and feels foolish for ever seeing a stranger. There is something strange about him, something beneath his skin, at the back of his eyes. But it is Sirius.

Harry throws himself at him, unashamedly, gripping tight until Sirius wraps his arms around him in turn. Harry still doesn’t hug people very often; Hermione hugs him whenever she sees him, and Ginny used to, and Mrs Weasley is always trying to pull him into familiar touch but he almost never initiates contact himself.

“’M a bit late.” Sirius mutters into his hair; he seems taller now, somehow, as well as the strange air about him that made it so easy not to recognise him before. “Would’ve come back sooner.”

The man he came in with snorts and Sirius pulls back from Harry to glare at him.

“I would’ve, if I’d known how.”

The stranger shrugs. “You didn’t exactly seem happy before. Or now, for that matter.”

Sirius rolls his eyes. “Harry, meet Jack. Jack, Harry.”

“Your Jack?” Harry asks, looking at the other man with more focus. Sirius used to talk about Jack sometimes, during that last summer, when he was sober. Jack was one of those when-I’m-frees that the two of them had fantasised about. They’d – Sirius had said – they’d kill each other if they had to live in the same house so Harry didn’t need to worry but he’d like it if they got along anyway and Harry had thought it wouldn’t be hard to like someone who made Sirius smile like that.

Now Jack looks bitter and angry and Harry doesn’t like him. Straight off. But he promises to try, for Sirius’ sake.

“You told him about me.” Jack says, sounding dazed. “I thought –

“So did I, near the end.” Sirius snaps back. “And your pal Ianto came around so I figured my wick’d burnt out.”

Jack takes a step back like the words have wounded him. “You met Ianto?” He sounds ill.

“He said you’d leave. That you always leave.”

“I should go.”

Sirius doesn’t say anything in return, just slumps against the wall, and looks at him tiredly. Harry sees what he meant, now, about them killing each other.

“I’ll make tea.” He says, quietly, and gives them privacy. He gets about four steps out of the room before he realises that he wants to go back in and check that it was all real. He doesn’t. He’s an adult now, after all. He does write a quick note off to Ron and Hermione – he hasn’t seen them in a week or so and it’s always easier when they’re together.

/

Jack doesn’t go anywhere. He can’t now, when he won’t be able to come back; Yvonne won’t let him back and Sirius might never come back to Wales, especially if he knows other djinn.

“I don’t go to their funerals.” He mutters, low enough that if Sirius were still human he wouldn’t hear it, “I try to stay as long as I can otherwise.”

“Are you jealous?” Asks Sirius, because he’s always been extra good at reading Jack.

He’d quite like to lie about this, really, because he’s pretty much already strung his noose in this conversation and he doesn’t feel the need to stick his head in it as well but he thinks Sirius would probably see through it.

“You know I am.” He says instead.

“It’s not that I don’t understand.” Sirius says, sitting into a chair that hadn’t been there a moment ago – the house and magic adapting to him easily. “You know I would’ve given anything to have James back.” It had been the first thing he’d asked, back when Jack had revealed himself. “I get being selfish and if what Ianto said is anything to go by then I’m damn flattered that it took you this long. It’s only –

He scrubs a hand across his face before anything can happen but Jack sees the tears this time, and not just the tracks they leave behind. He walks over and kneels by the arm of the chair. The carpet’s soft and nice and the house doesn’t look anything like Sirius had described before and Jack wants desperately, the way he always has, for absolution.

Sirius sighs and slips off his chair to kneel next to him. “I wish you’d asked Jack. I would have said yes if you’d asked and I could’ve told the others and they would’ve helped.”

“Would’ve asked for their own back more like.” Jack huffs into Sirius’ collarbone. “They’ll do the same to you.”

“And I’ll tell them it’s not that easy and that if people wanted to stick around they’d become ghosts and that having been to what very well could have been some sort of heaven I’m not dragging anyone out of it unless I’ve got it in writing that they want me to.”

“Eternal life’s a pretty good concept.”

“So I’d tell them to go and talk to a ghost and find out just how fun it is to watch everyone around you die and know you gave up your chance to ever see them again.”

Jack sobs. “I thought you’d hate me. I thought you do.”

“I do.” Sirius says and means something else entirely and when Harry comes back in with tea they’re kissing again.

/

They drink tea and talk and Harry meets Jack properly and only sort of still hates him and Harry lists of the names of the dead like they used to on Potterwatch each night and watches silently as Sirius’ face closes off when he hears about Remus.

He likes Jack more for how he reacts then because it was part of the reason he hadn’t managed to stay with Ginny – the way they grieved differently and Jack doesn’t seem to mind that Sirius has become stone.

Harry takes picture of Teddy out of his pocket – there’s different ones in each of his robes but he takes the kid everywhere he can when he can – and passes them over.

“Better form of immortality, that.” Sirius says and Jack winces theatrically.

But Teddy seems to chase the shadows away quickly enough, or maybe Sirius had already known somewhere, or maybe he’s just used to it the same way Harry hasn’t taken down his black funeral robes from the front of his closet yet even though it’s been three years since the last of the war dead was buried.

“They used to sell it like that, when I was a kid,” Jack says, “Immortality potions when they really just meant contraception. Everyone knew though, I mean, it was just a joke.” Sirius laughs.

“Wish Voldemort had found that then.”

“I dunno,” Harry laughs as well, feeling as though it’s been months, “Imagine lots of little Dark Lord babies running around.”

Sirius snickers, Harry feels that feeling of safety again, and Jack smiles for the first time that Harry’s seen.

  
  


It’s evening when Ron and Hermione arrive through the floo. They’ve stayed as long as they can, Sirius says, but he’d only bartered for a day. But he stares pointedly at Jack until Jack begrudgingly but smilingly gives him his address.

“Yeah come over anytime, I guess.” He bites something back and turns away.

Sirius hugs Harry again. “Leave it a week or two, give him time to adjust, yeah? Do you still have your mirror?”

“I – it broke. Sorry.”

Sirius bites his lip, drawing blood but not noticing, “Ah well…”

“Here.” Jack grunts, “Two-way, right?”

Harry takes one in amazement. “But. But these are really hard to make; I mean I looked into it, after -. And you’ve just had seconds.”

Jack looks surprised at his disbelief. “I just.” He snaps his fingers.

“It’s not the same sort of magic, Harry.” Sirius says, speaking directly into the mirror just to check. “It’s plasma.” He grins fondly at Jack. “Oh, old-school pureblood bollocks, don’t worry about it. Good trick though.”

That’s when the fire flares green and his best friends step through. The flash of green must have startled the two men though because their fingers snap in tandem and suddenly there’s a new wall down the middle of Harry’s living room.

Harry can’t blame them, he supposes, having made the same mistake a couple of times after the war, usually via stunning people. It’s only that theirs is a rather spectacular piece of magic for a reflexive move. Not to mention big.

“We should go.” Jack says sheepishly, “You don’t want Yvonne turning up as well.”

Sirius rubs his hand over his chin and surveys the wall. “See that’s why floo warning systems are such a great invention. Mind, I think they were invented _after_ Avada.” He doesn’t sound the slightest bit abashed. “I’ll – err – call Harry.”

And then they’re gone, without even the pop of apparition to mark it.

Sighing slightly, he turns to the wall and makes to vanish it, but annoyingly it doesn’t have any affect so he has to settle for slowly disintegrating it, brick by brick.

“Just apparate over!” He yells to Ron and Hermione once it becomes clear that the wall will take a while.

“What the fuck.” Ron says, a half-second before Hermione appears.

Harry just shrugs.


	7. explanations

Hermione says djinns are a myth and Ron just goes quiet but Harry thinks what with divination and the deathly hallows most of his life has been governed by the things Hermione doesn’t think are real.

Ron he corners later and tells him that he did ask if they could do it twice but Jack had said no and Sirius had only shrugged.

Ron, to his credit, doesn’t say anything cruel and just asks that they stay away from George. Somehow Harry doesn’t think that would be a problem.

/

Since they got back Jack’s eyes have been trained on the spot of blood on Sirius’ lips. Sirius quite likes this so he keeps reopening the wound. Eventually, when he’s wound Jack up enough, he suggests that they duel.

He isn’t yet used to the instinctivity of his new magic though so Jack knocks him down embarrassingly quickly.

Jack grins down at him, blood spattered over his teeth, eyes bluer than they should be, hunger coating his being. Sirius stares at him half-lidded and slowly, tauntingly, begins to lick Jack’s blood from his fingers.

  
  


“So,” Sirius starts, utterly content but still desperate to know more, “What _are_ our limits?”

He can’t see Jack roll his eyes but he’s pretty sure that’s what’s happening. “I don’t know.”

“Can I summon my lamp?”

“No. You can’t do anything to the lamp and you can’t undo another djinn’s magic. Past that I’ve never found a limit.”

Sirius hums. “Can _you_ summon my lamp?”

“No.”

“There must be loopholes though.”

“I never looked.”

“ _Jack_.”

“I was a squib, you know, before.” Jack rolls over to face him, scowling; there’s still blood on his lips. “And when it happened I was just so happy to do magic that I never explored.”

“And your friends?”

“Let’s see. Gwen was a muggle, Owen a wizard, Rose a witch, Suzie was a poltergeist, Tosh a siren, Ianto a priest and Merlin only knows what the Doctor started out as.”

“A priest?”

“Well he worships something and he lives in a temple. He’s my favourite of them, you know.”

“I know.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“He said that you’d leave, that you always left. And that you were a coward and I should prepare for heartbreak.”

“Yeah, he hates me a bit.”

“He loves you.”

“Not anymore.” Jack shakes his head. “Not for years now. You shouldn’t stay with me you know – djinns tend to light up around others, it’s hard to control.”

“But you’ll look for the lamp won’t you?” For a second, if you’re looking for it, there’s a flash of fear in his eyes.

“I – yeah, it’s not so bad if we travel, if we don’t let it build up in one place. Don’t you mind?”

“No. I’ve grown used to running. I’m not letting anyone trap me ever again.”

“There’s only so much world.”

“It’s always changing though. And we can visit each other? Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jack looks confused; he isn’t fighting it, getting his cake and eating it but _damn_ things aren’t meant to go this well for him. It’s overwhelming this script change, this meteor hit.

“Great!” Sirius grins wide. “One quick question; can we die?”

Jack goes still – he doesn’t need breathing, not really and right now he’s forgetting how. “I don’t know. I think Suzie did but – “

“I don’t _want_ forever Jack, that’s all. I’ll stay, I will, but I can’t promise eternity.”

“Ok.” Jack pulls in a breath again, desperate to be human, desperate to be enough just this once. “I think – it could probably be a wish. If you give the lamp to Harry, he could keep it until you…” He reaches out, presses his palm against Sirius’ face, wishes he’d be warm for a change so he knew he hadn’t just resurrected a corpse.

“Wouldn’t work.” Sirius dismisses easily, like he doesn’t know how much he’s scaring Jack. “Can’t run the risk of him just wishing for something off-handedly and anyway I might want to outlive him.”

“There must be something though.” Jack says, unable to resist the conversation any longer, “Otherwise there’d be more of us.”

“Introduce me to your friends?”

Jack grimaces. “They won’t approve of you.” Owen, he thinks. Owen will hate you.

“I don’t mind. It can’t be the lamp Jack. I won’t be a prisoner again. I can’t.” He looks grey, tired and old. Jack throws an arm over him and drags them close, then summons a blanket for good measure. He wonders if Sirius knows how much he hates himself.

/

“So you woke up in a desert?” Tosh checks.

Much to Jack’s surprise all of his friends had turned up to help. Less surprisingly, none of them approved of Sirius’ reappearance in the world. Sirius doesn’t seem to care but Jack is considerably twitchier than usual and refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, especially Ianto’s.

Sirius understands, of course; Ianto had been very honest when he came around before and because he understands how Jack’s feeling he doesn’t look at him often or take his hand the way he wants to.

He nods. “Yes.”

“Tell me about it.”

He shrugs. “It was hot. Empty. I couldn’t remember anything.”

“Was it peaceful?” Owen speaks for the first time, sullen.

Sirius considers.

“No. It was hot.”

Owen laughs. “Could you recognise it?”

“Definitely.”

“Good. Take me there now and I’ll start looking there. I don’t want to be around any of you right now.”

Sirius nods and clasps his shoulder. In a blink they’re back in the desert, in the same spot he first opened his eyes before. He doesn’t know how he knows that.

He lets go of Owen. Briefly they look the other over and then Sirius leaves.

/

“He’s nice.” Ianto says, the second Sirius and Owen disappear.

Tosh nods. “You could have done worse.”

Gwen huffs. “You never did this before, not to any of the others.”

Jack stays quiet; the truth is, he doesn’t really know why he brought Sirius back instead of any of the other pretty boys and girls he’s loved. He always loves them fiercely and usually they love him back, twice as strong. Maybe it was because they’d had such a short time together – not even a year, really, and then London.

He drags a hand through the air, slow like molasses, and wishes, not for the first time, that he had friends who adapted to being mystical, mythical beings the same way he had: slowly.

“I love him.”

“You always love them.”

Jack nods. It’s true. “Are you angry?”

“No.” Gwen rolls her eyes. “I just don’t know what’s so different about him.”

Tosh though, nods. “A little. You shouldn’t ruin people like this.”

Jack nods again. He wonders what it would be like to be one of the functional ones.

Ianto comes over and kisses him on the cheek. “I told you. He’s nice.”

  
  


There’s a snap as Sirius appears back in front of them and time dispenses, unending, around them.

/

Sirius vanishes up to the roof as soon as the four friends’ conversation upends into shouting. He needs to think.

The other djinns had confirmed what Jack said – that a lamp could be anything. Gwen had volunteered hers first; a regret. Toshiko’s, a victim. Ianto, a prayer.

And Jack of course. Jack had avoided the subject and Sirius had seen the curiosity in the others’ eyes matching with his own. Jack had said that he heard they were your soul, whatever the object, and Sirius had been distracted immediately by thoughts of the dementors and hadn’t heard whatever it was that made them start shouting.

He thinks this used to be easier – putting things together, but he can’t remember if before is before this, or before Azkaban.

In his mind he ticks them off. Regrets – far too many to count, or ever to find but the biggest one remained trusting Peter and there _were_ rules to this: it had to be small, concealable, portable. So unless Wormtail’s skull was lying around, or perhaps his silver paw, he could tentatively put Gwen’s to the side.

Next, a victim. Toshiko hadn’t specified, he hadn’t asked. Was this someone she killed? Someone she ruined? He could never ask.

A prayer? No. He couldn’t remember ever having prayed, they didn’t really, wizards. The closest he’d got was watching from behind a door at Hogwarts as a younger student leant against a wall and begged for her parents to be safe. Ravenclaw. 1977. He could just about recall seeing her cry a week later at breakfast.

  
  


And whatever Jack was, it wasn’t what Sirius was. He could never be in love with him if they’d been the same.

If it was something important to him – but it couldn’t be, could it? Because anything could be recreated with plasma, anything, provided someone remembered it. That would make the possibilities limitless. If it was limitless no one would ever recover theirs.

But if it wasn’t important to him then it must be something significant, something bitter, something cruel.

If his lamp is his soul, then it isn’t a secret as to where it will be hiding.


	8. you ain't never

It isn’t the same as in his nightmares. This time the dementors veer away from him – which is good, because he’d never been able to cast a patronus after getting out.

He doesn’t want to be here, but if he’s quick he can make it so Jack never has to step foot here. Not ever.

Harry shouldn’t either though, and who else is there that he can trust?

They were all of them dead, now.

/

“I lived here longer than anywhere else, technically.” Sirius says, crouched down in front of his old cell, without turning around.

“Home, sweet home.” Owen says sardonically. “That’s it alright.” The prophecy gleams, despite the lack of light.

Sirius stands up. “What about you? Got one?”

“London.” He replies tersely. “All my life. But Yvonne was there first.”

“Where do you live now?”

“As far away from everyone else as I can get.”

Sirius stays silent.

“You’ll set up in that desert won’t you?”

“You can have it if you want.”

“No. I can’t.”

“No.” Sirius smiles slowly.

“I think I would have liked you in some other life. Jack should have introduced you before.”

“He never met my friends either.”

“Yeah?”

“I was scared they’d ask him for help. And then they’d get annoyed with me when he said no and say I was betraying them – again. And then they’d make me choose.”

“You would have chosen Jack?”

“Oh, there were a lot of them I would have happily died for but I was very tired of fighting their war.” Sirius shrugs. “Merlin, I hate this place.”

Owen looks around. “It’s kinda growing on me.”

Sirius raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. “’Spose it’s better without the dementors everywhere.” He grins suddenly, “You could move in.”

Owen doesn’t respond.

/

Yvonne escorts him to Grimmauld Place.

“This is the last time I’ll let you in.”

Sirius nods. “I don’t want to come back. I’ve never liked London, no offence.”

She ignores him.

“Well thanks.”

“You shouldn’t trust Harkness. A lot of things are his fault.”

“Thanks. Jack already let me know not to trust him though. So did his friends actually.”

She sneers at him, making it clear that she doesn’t think he’s taking it seriously. Well she’s right in a way, but Sirius is still keyed for wartime and he knows how to love people without trusting them. He did learn something from Peter, after all.

Sirius turns away from Yvonne and lets himself in.

The house is still welcoming – and he hates its magic a little, for that, because it reminds him too much of the years he spent trying to belong here – but he ignores it for the moment, his mind screaming at him to find Harry as quickly as possible, get this over with, fucking _finally_ , and then maybe, maybe, he can go home.

Find home. Build something in the desert that he can go back and forth between. It will be worth the war if he can be free at last. Free at last. Free at –

Sirius bites down hard on his lip in a fruitless attempt to stop the mania from descending. Useless. Merlin this _house_.

He hears laughter then: sudden, sharp and childish. Harry must have Teddy over – bad timing there Padfoot, you can’t be dragging another child into your madness but you aren’t going to be able to beg a third visit off of Yvonne – still the manic feeling’s left his bones and he hasn’t even had to draw blood. This day might still be salvageable.

He has to swallow a few times before he can bring himself to stand in front of the door the voices are coming from, and even then he can’t find the strength to knock.

It occurs to him that if he’d only knocked on the front door like a normal person then this could have been avoided. He just isn’t used to this new world.

Before he can actually muster up the courage to knock on the sodding thing though, it swings open. Immediately he flattens himself into the wallpaper and resists the urge to transform or disapparate.

Before he registers that it isn’t Harry sharing the hallway with him he’s already blurting out an apology for barging in without an invitation.

“Oh hush.” Andromeda says, and throws her arms around him. “It’s so good to see you!” She says warmly, “Harry said you were back, but I didn’t quite believe him.”

She was talking, weirdly, as though he’d gotten back early from a long trip, as opposed to being suddenly alive.

“It’s good to see you too.” He whispers into her shoulder.

“Did you come to see Harry? I’ll go and distract Teddy, if you’re not ready to meet him.”

“Actually,” Sirius says when she releases him, “You wouldn’t do me a favour would you?”

Andromeda levels him with a look. “That depends but almost certainly.”

“I need someone to go to Azkaban with me and destroy a prophecy. It’ll be really easy I just don’t want to drag Harry out there.” He takes a breath and looks away from her.

“And your new man?”

“He…can’t.”

Andromeda purses her lips in disapproval, presumably worrying that Jack is taking advantage of Sirius. Sirius’ stomach squirms in guilt.

“Of course I’ll help you Sirius. I wish I’d made that clearer when you were alive.”

Sirius leans back into the wall and breathes out. This is why he has to do this now – it’s all too easy to wish for things offhand.

“Can we go now?” He says. “It won’t take long.”

“Of course.” She slips her hand into his and –

  
  


It’s still a shock to him; how easy magic is now, when it used to be that he was moving through swampland to cast a spell. He’d avoided touching the wand he’d been given if he could, not that he hadn’t been grateful to have one again but it wasn’t _his_. And while that sort of thing would usually garner sympathy from your peers the Order hadn’t exactly been subtle that they thought he should just put Azkaban behind him.

Still, no point being bitter now, not when they were mostly dead.

  
  


Andromeda, when he finally opens his eyes, has already been inside the cell and retrieved the prophecy. She’s holding it up to her eyes and rolling it in her hand as if it were a crystal ball.

“I tried smashing it.” She says, ignoring his silence, “And burning it. I was tempted to use fiendfyre but I haven’t for years and it’s a recipe for disaster.”

“You need to. Um.” He shouldn’t be scared; he knows Andromeda won’t betray him – oh old mistakes Sirius, you’d think you’d learn – and he can’t bring back the dead anyway. Probably. “Wish me free.”

Andromeda stares at him. He takes the time to notice how little she looks like Bellatrix anymore; with so many laugh lines and more grey than brown in her hair, and to try and calm his heart which is thrumming a desperate drumbeat against his chest. If he’s misjudged this… If she’s angry that he got another chance when so many didn’t…

Andromeda clears her throat. He meets her eyes – she looks nervous.

“I wish that for now and forever Sirius Orion Black is free in all his forms.”

And he feels it – the shackles breaking, leaving him forever, the fresh way the air feels, the purest magic in the air washing over him, welcoming him home.

“Sirius!” Andromeda sounds scared. “Oh, did I do it wrong? I tried to come up with something solid but I suppose I should have just stuck to the traditional – oh, I’ve still got the prophecy I can wish aga-

But the prophecy is disintegrating in her hands. Sirius grasps them instead and the last of the dust falls over them both.

“You did it perfectly, Medea! Thank you, thank you! I’m free, I’m finally –” He breaks off, unable to keep talking with how overwhelmed he feels. “I feel so weightless.”

“Should I wish for something? To make sure?”

“If you want.” He doesn’t really care, he knows this is it: real, true freedom, like he’s been looking for all his life.

“I wish…” Andromeda says pensively, “To have forks for hands.”

Sirius laughs hard enough that he has to steady himself against the brick behind him. “Forks! That’s ridiculous Medea! Why would you wish for that?”

“It’s how Teddy draws people – oh stop laughing, he’s only three – and I couldn’t think of a real wish that bring the mood down.”

Sirius sobers up forcefully. “Medea I’m –

“Don’t.” She says sternly, “It was war and they were brave. You were all always so brave. Getting you back, _oh Sirius_ , it’s a miracle.”

“But not the miracle you would have chosen.”

Andromeda looks at him sadly; anyone else, he knows, would lie to him here but not Andromeda – well not any of their generation of Blacks really: white lies not really being something they were taught.

“No. If I had a choice in the matter it would be Nymphadora in your place. Teddy deserves a parent after all.” She smiles at him, faked self-sacrifice coating her face. “Of course it helps to know that Ted always expected to die this way – he was a miracle too, for as long as I had him. And Remus was – well you knew him better than I ever could.”

Sirius nods. “I can’t really picture him as a father. Certainly not on his own.”

“He was good at it, but I could never choose him over my daughter. But I think – and I mean this Sirius, truly – that even she had more of a life than you. You deserve a second chance. The world never really gave you your first.”

“You sound like Jack.” Sirius huffs a laugh. “Come on; let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Medea is a lady from Greek myth, generally portrayed as a villain on account of murdering her children which, fair. I like her story though. Andromeda -- in myth, is kinda a victim and I feel like the Black cousins wanted to win. (Regulus' nickname is Regis, Sirius' is Oz. I haven't given Narcissa or Bellatrix anything yet because I don't like them as much.


	9. Epilogue 1.

“Yes.” Owen says grandly to himself, and several apathetic prisoners, “I could live here.”


	10. Epilogue 2: Eternity, and the Next Great Adventure

Andromeda Tonks was dead.

There, he’d said it.

She was the first person Sirius loved to die since he came back. It had been coming for a while now, death, in the way old age did. Sirius had never known anyone to die so peacefully before, so naturally.

He knows that Harry feels the same way he does – shock, certainly, and anguish, but also awe and satisfaction that she’d lived such a long and full life. Pain, at her passing but pleasure, at her life.

But Sirius knows that this perspective was given to them from their time as soldiers and that not everyone shares it. So he isn’t surprised when Teddy approaches him the night before the funeral. He’s only surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.

Teddy looks awful, grey and lonely and sleepless; instead of reflecting his mood like usual his morphing had stopped altogether. He looks a lot like Remus.

He also looked uncharacteristically angry; not only was Teddy an unusually laid back and mellow person but he and Sirius had never had reason to quarrel before. Therefore, it was odd for him to see so much hate directed at him.

Seeing no reason to do this in front of other people, Sirius leads Teddy outside. It’s raining.

There’s barely a moments peace after the door swings shut before Teddy starts speaking. Well, shouting.

“Bring her back! You came back! Bring her back!”

Sirius shakes his head.

Teddy makes a noise somewhere between a moan and a howl and throws a, frankly terrible, punch Sirius’ way. Sirius allows the blow to hit, and the next one, and the next.

After the fifth punch, Teddy realises the futility of his violence and stops. “Bring her back.” He whispers, voice mingling with the rain mingling with his desperate tears. “Please.”

“I can’t.” Sirius shakes his head. “I won’t.”

“WHY NOT?” His voice breaks, snaps and shatters. He must think Sirius is being so cruel. “What could possibly –

“She misses her husband.” Sirius says firmly, “And her daughter, and so many others. And she’ll see you again one day.” His heart breaks.

Teddy ignores him. He’s so _young_.

“But I miss her. I need her.”

“You’re all grown up.” Sirius says wryly.

“I DON’T CARE! BRING HER BACK!”

Sirius shakes his head again, making sure to meet Teddy’s eyes, even though it pains him to see how much he’s hurting the boy.

“I HATE YOU!” Teddy screams into his silence. When Sirius doesn’t reply, or offer reparations he spins around and storms back into the house.

Harry approaches from the doorway. Sirius doesn’t ask how long he’s been listening.

“He doesn’t mean it.” Harry says wetly.

Sirius ignores him; he’s fairly certain that Teddy _does_ mean it. It won’t last forever but for now, at least, the boy hates him.

“Come back inside.” Harry says, putting a hand on Sirius’ arm.

Sirius grins at him. “I think I’ll sleep outside. Stand guard, that sort of thing.” He can’t stand the idea of sleeping in the same house as the empty shell of Andromeda.

“Sirius…”

“I’m hardly going to catch cold, Harry.” Sirius says wryly, “I’m not angry at Teddy, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I know. I’m more worried about you than him.”

“You know that I can’t bring her back, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Harry shrugs, “I mean, I never wanted to ask.”

Sirius stares at him sadly – he’s so many years older than his father ever was; they look so little alike nowadays – and swallows. He takes Harry’s wrist and leads him over to the shelter of a tree, pretending that he doesn’t notice Teddy returning and lurking behind them.

“I never told you,” He starts, “Well, anyone, but I really was dead.”

Harry lets out a sharp breath, and Sirius pulls him securely to his side.

“Yeah. I remember it too – it was soft and light and there were people smiling at me. I loved it.” He meets Teddy’s eyes over Harry’s shoulder and beckons him forward into their hug. “I love it here too.”

Teddy collapses into them, sobbing.

“No one should have to live forever.” Sirius whispers, just to make sure the message has stuck; this way will hurt less in the long run – after all, Andromeda is only the first. Everyone dies. Eventually.

“I just want her to come home.” Teddy sobs, “What am I gonna do now?”

**Author's Note:**

> oh - and the character death tag just means Sirius' because it felt weird to imply he was alive


End file.
